Tales In The Key Of Life

The More We Change, The More We Stay The Same

2011-03-20T23:06:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed how much more focused we are just lately?

Things impact us more. Like the quake in Japan. Those poor people took the brunt of a major earthquake with hundreds of aftershocks that are still happening even now, and a terrible tsunami that took the lives of thousands. Not to mention the damage to their nuclear power plants and the ensuing trouble that has caused.

Actually it is the nuclear accident that I want to talk about. I was listening on the radio today and I heard a thyroid cancer specialist telling people not to stockpile potassium iodide because it wouldn't do any good for radiation that might make it here over five and a half thousand miles away. Are you kidding me? What were those people thinking about? It would be a different story if they were thinking of packaging it up and sending it off to help those poor people in Japan. But I doubt if that was the reason for their trip to the pharmacy.

Well, the other thing is the drama that unfolds before our eyes. All of this has become much more available because of high speed Internet networks and connections that hook the world up practically in real-time! I think the most dramatic thing has been the capability of a news story, replete with scary pictures and video, to go viral on the Internet in fractions of a second.

Along with this, has emerged the new critical society, where everyone has an opinion, and this collective opinion has replaced whatever went before. Wait a minute! What actually did go before? Well, we had "Opinion" columns and editorial content. We still do have these. But nowadays, if someone makes a comment, the whole world gets to find out and really quickly too.

We are just getting to explore the localization part, since before people were really reluctant to give out their location. Now, the location helps in the overall data mix, to provide more detailed information about trends and other things. If you allow a social network access to your location, that network can add this information to the general information about where people are and this adds to the usefulness of the data.

I see the future as being very interesting indeed. Without wanting to labor the topic of natural disasters, just recently, some scientists in California have managed to hone their prediction skills for the likelihood of a major quake here, and they are using some pretty advanced techniques. They are using satellites to measure the movement of the ground with GPS (Global Positioning System), tracking how far the ground has moved after a quake. This then allows the data to reveal how much stress is now bearing on the known fault lines.

This new technology came into its own during the 2010 April Mexicali quake that was felt between Mexico and Fresno, CA. The data that came from that quake was plentiful and opened up a whole new range of possibilities for earthquake forecasts, something that everyone would be grateful for. Even Japan's automated warning system only gives them 30 seconds. It could be more for Los Angeles, because of the logistics inherent in our unique fault system and where the populated areas are located.

Another thing that was revived after the Mexicali quake was the theory of a prominent Japanese seismology professor, Dr Kiyoo Mogi, whose ideas about this emerged some twenty years ago. His theory was that small quakes begin appearing in a circular formation around a central point and at a certain critical time, the doughnut hole (in the center of the doughnut) could be the scene of a major quake. His "Mogi Doughnut Theory" is talked about even today and Cal Tech scientists have based some of their work on his theory.

There is a Season, Turn Turn Turn!

2010-11-02T22:00:00.000-07:00

"...To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn), There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn), And a time to every purpose, under Heaven
A time to be born, a time to die, A time to plant, a time to reap, A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep..." - The Byrds - "Turn Turn Turn"

It is the eve of the General Election here in America, November 2, 2010, and every single race with very few exceptions are extremely close, meaning of course that for every one American, another wants to vote opposite!

We are seeing the intense coverage, the pollsters and the pundits, all analyzing and assessing the figures as they emerge from right to left, from East to West. Almost predictably, the Right has the Right and the Left has the Left, meaning that a Democrat is likely to be elected in Hawaii, and California too, and a few Republicans will be elected in the Right.

Of course it is never as simple as that. Tom Brokaw had an interesting comment to make on the NBC Nightly News analysis show with Brian Williams. In fact it was very insightful. He said that it is now never the same every two years. Also he mentioned the fact that the Tea Party has had an effect on the Republicans, who have never been so diverse in living memory, with new diversity members headed for Washington!

And Sara Palin is telling the President that "...enough is enough", deploring the change in America. It would seem that much of America feels the same...

And just to add to the mix, the Hispanics are coming out in force as voters. This will be a challenge for Harry Reid in Nevada since he probably needs to learn how to say "Muchas Gracias" said José Diaz-Balart of Telemundo, commenting on this overwhelming majority of Hispanics in today's political arena, another new phenomenon.

Other stuff - there has never been quite so much money spent on political campaigning ever before, particularly here in California. Meg Whitman spent hundreds of millions on her campaign, where over two thousand commercial messages would be seen promoting her campaign each day on television. It makes you wonder how Jerry Brown could even be predicted the winner of this race! However, thinking a little deeper, this means that he has the backing of a lot of special interest groups.

The truly crazy thing about this is that it will all be over tomorrow. True, the politicians will have to get to work, but the voting will all be over. However, don't let's forget, the pattern is now similar to Europe, that of stalemate, where nobody is truly satisfied. half vote one way and the other votes the other. I saw the same thing happening in Great Britain where a Labor Party (British version of Democrats) win over and over in a highly marginal race kept occurring. In the end an unelected Prime Minister (a phenomenon that could only occur in Great Britain) stepped down to a sigh of relief from everyone British, and now the Conservative (Republican) Prime Minister is busy dismantling all the programs that the outgoing party put in place (when the country could barely afford it!) In situations like this, there are many more truly unhappy people, so the politicians are going to have to work a lot harder to solve the real problems, and amazingly enough, after all the hype, the recession is still here in America, 9.6 million are unemployed and nothing about it has really been fixed!

Let's see what happens next!

What Were You Doing, (In C Sharp Minor)

2009-12-01T18:45:00.000-08:00

I got stuck in a mess on the L.A. freeway system this morning.

Oh Yes, I never said, did I? I have a job now. I am writing web content, among others things. Well, I left for work at a little before the usual time and, as I approached the freeway, i slowly became aware of a massive back-up, several miles long, and, after hearing the radio traffic news, I heard it had gone back as far as the next town...

Anyway the long and the short of it was that I spent around an hour and ten minutes going a distance I usually do in ten minutes most days and I guess, compared with other people, I got off lightly!

The humorous side of it was that the whole sig-alert was down to a gigantic truck spilling its load of... guess what? Pomegranates! First thing that went through my mind was: Persephone, stuck in Hades after eating the fatal fruit! Classic Greek mythology always seems to repeat itself, doesn't it!?

Got to work. I was late for one meeting, which went ahead anyway and a massive amount of stuff started to pile up.

The Language of the World

2009-07-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

I speak seven languages. Really? Which languages? European languages? Asian languages?

In my mind I am conjuring up a visual image of the person who speaks all of these languages. How do they get daily practice speaking not just one other language than their "mother-tongue" but all of the ones they profess to speak...

It seems to radiate outwardly in a kind of a wave. Let's say the mother-tongue is English. In school we may have learned French, Spanish, German, even Italian. At a stretch, we may have learned Russian, but this is a far harder language to learn with past passive participles and other oddments.

Going out with the ripples, it is unlikely that we would learn Portuguese or Greek. Even less likely that we would learn Romanian, Serbian or Croat. It is even less likely still that we have a command of Catalan or Basque. But we might. Following this theme, Asian languages are going to be really hard to learn, because they have no relationship to anything in our experience, unless we have spent time there in an Asian country with Asians and speaking an Asian language. And Asians are remarkably good at English, so why would we need to learn their language?

I began to learn Korean. I was fascinated with the culture. I got good at conversational Korean, but never learned the alphabet. This was a mistake, because I couldn't relate to anything which had been written, only spoken. Now, if I try and remember anything, it's a distant memory. And this was only a few months ago...

I think what I am coming to is that to successfully learn any language, you need to have a strong knowledge of the culture and also have someone who speaks that language spend time with you, helping you understand all the nuances and tricks in learning to speak it. Oddly enough, I remember enough about Korean to know that you have to use different words to say goodbye to someone who is leaving you than if you are leaving them!

Something which is really helping is the emergence of the Web 2.0 culture and all the social networks. This is helping stimulate bonds of friendship between really indigenous boundaries. It will be interesting to see how far this really goes. Even the Chinese censorship and blocking of outside web links is not having an adverse effect on social media. The word is still getting through. And woe betide you if you are an Iranian dictator who wants to stop a fair election! The word also gets out here too.

Outrage, Twitter worm author gets a job at exqSoft Solutions...

2009-04-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

Why does someone who intentionally wanted to do harm to millions of people deserve a job more than me?

"It's because he can code, Steve," I hear you shouting. Yes but that's all very well, but a 17 year-old? People do improprietary things every day and sometimes they are punished and other times they are rewarded. It is such a crazy world. I mean, why would this dude get a job and the inventor of that terrible virus "Melissa" be headed to jail?

I think that it probably feels better to do the right thing. Every day I and other people too, are presented with situations where, if we said nothing, we would be undercharged, or we would not have to suffer the consequences of what would happen if we had spoken up. But for some reason, it always feels better to "face the music!"

I don't know about you, but I feel better at night. I sleep better if I know I have done the correct thing. Michael Josephson has written a book about ethics. In fact Michael Josephson writes a weekly column about how ethics make the world a better place. You can hear this on the radio too. The amazing thing is, there is so much quality to living an ethical life. The knock-on effect of your actions are very far-reaching! You have no idea how far-reaching they really are until you come to view it all from a point outside of yourself. Then you will see.

Well, here's hoping that I made a difference to somebody's life today!

If Music Be The Food Of Love, Om On.....

2009-04-18T15:52:00.000-07:00

We look endearingly at mantras. We gaze lovingly at yantras,

and yet we still cannot ground our chakras. Have you heard the crystal bowls being played? I had a friend who played the bowls. Their steady but haunting music had a positive effect on my thoughts. I was able to instill really great ideas in my head.

We need to breathe deeply and consider all of the great things that happen in our world. We need to be grateful for all the things we do have. We need to look forward to the things that will be coming to please us in the future.

There is so much in this world which is sad and dismal, we need to correct the balance. We can do that by being positive and upbeat. We need to look at happy things and face the brightness of the sun and shiny happy people. If we do that, all the shadowy, evil things will take their place behind us.

Every awesome day begins with the sun rising and warming our bodies. Even in winter, the sun comes for a few hours to warm up the earth. After the winter solstice, the days grow longer and the nights grow shorter all the time. That period is soon.

"When the white eagle of the north is flying overhead,
and the browns, reds, and golds of autumn lie in
the gutter, dead.
Remember then the summer birds with wings of fire
flaying come to witness springs new hope,
born of leaves decaying.
As new life will come through death, love will come
at leisure, love of love, love of life and giving,
without measure gives in return the wondrous yearn
for promise, almost seen.
Live hand in hand, and together we'll stand

on the threshold of a dream." - The Moody Blues

Great Indian Food You Are Going To Love!

2009-04-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

An Indian dish called dhansak.

It is made with four types of lentils (aka "dhal" or "dal") and chicken. (Apologies to all the vegetarians out there.) The complete Indian (Parsee) name is murgh dhansak (meaning chicken curry made with lentils in a savory sauce.) Most restaurants who serve this dish make it medium spicy, so if you don't like any spicyness in your food, you may like to request it mild.

It is eaten with Pulao Rice. Meantime here is the recipe for those who want to create it at home:

Rice Method: (start this around 15 minutes to the end)

2 cups	Indian Basmati Rice
6 tbsp	oil
1 tbsp	whole cumin
6	whole cloves
1 stick	cinnamon
8	whole black peppers
1/2	onion, sliced thinly
	salt
1/2 cup	frozen peas
2	large black cardamon seeds

Heat oil in a pan. When hot, add the pepper, cloves, cinnamon and cardamom. Fry until brown. To this add the cumin and onions and fry until onions are soft and pink. Meanwhile wash and soak rice for 1/2 hour. Then add the rice to the pan and fry for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Add 4 cups water and cook until rice is done.

Dhansak Method:

1/4 tsp

1/2 tsp

1 tbsp

1/2 tsp

1 tsp

1/2 tsp

1 cup

2 1/2 cups

1/4 cup

1/2 cup

1 1/3 cups

2/3 cup

1/4 cup

1 tsp

11/2 lb

2-inch piece

1/4 cup

2 tsp

1 tbsp

2/3 cup

1 1/3 cups

1 tsp

seeds from 3 cardamom pods

ground nutmeg
cloves

ground fenugreek
chili powder

ground star anise

coriander

ground black pepper

mixed dal (lentil), washed and soaked for 1 hour

you will need: toor, masoor, urad and moong 1/4 cup each.

water

chopped cilantro

large onions, chopped

diced pumpkin

diced eggplant

diced potatoes

vegetable oil

garam masala

boneless chicken breasts, cubed

fresh ginger, peeled and grated

garlic cloves, crushed

chopped fenugreek leaves

large green chilies, finely chopped up

(you could make this only one chili, if you want a mild dish!)

large tomatoes, chopped up

tomato paste

dark brown sugar

Tamarind water

chicken stock

white wine vinegar

juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper

Heat a dry skillet pan until it's hot, then add cardamom, cloves, and all the ground spices (nutmeg, star anise, pepper and fenugreek), and dry-fry for 4-5 minutes or until the spices are toasted and releasing their aroma. Put the dal (lentils mix) into a saucepan with the water, 1 tablespoon of the chopped cilantro, 2 tsp of the spice mixture, the onions, pumpkin, eggplant, and potatoes.

Simmer, covered, for 40 minutes or until the vegetables and lentils are very soft. Remove from the heat and puree in a blender (that's right! in a blender) to a smooth sauce.

Heat the oil and fry the remaining spice mixture with the garam masala. Add the chicken cubes, and fry on all sides to seal. (It is sometimes helpful to get the chicken going first by pre-cooking in a microwave.) Add the ginger, garlic, the remaining chopped cilantro, fenugreek leaves, tomatoes and green chilies to the skillet and cook for 10 minutes. Reminder: about twenty minutes into this final section of cooking, you will need to start the rice. Don't forget, because it is great when both gets served at the same time! Add the pureed dal mixture to the chicken with the tomato paste, sugar, tamarind water, and stock. Simmer gently, covered, for 35 minutes or until the chicken has cooked through and is tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper and add the vinegar and lemon juice.

Simmer for 5 minutes and serve on silver platters

with Basmati (jasmine, pulao or whatever rice! It really is best with Basmati. Look at my separate recipe for the rice, which needs to be started 11 minutes before the rest of the dhansak is ready.)

Also, you might want to break out the mango chutney and lime pickle!

Serves 4 - Enjoy!

The Global Village

2009-04-08T22:58:00.000-07:00

In my last blog, we touched on the Global Village. I wonder how many of you really understand this whole concept? I mean, it is one thing to know of the Global Village and entirely another to realize the implications of it too.

The Global Village is the phenomenon where we see that goods from around the world are easily available in our stores and in places where we would have struggled to obtain these items before. Of course the original term, "Global Village" was coined by Marshall McLuhan where he showed that the electronic hook-up of the world via the World Wide Web and what went before, made the distance between global areas so much shorter in terms of time.

Instantaneous movement of information has caused this phenomenon and it is clear that along with the information movement, so have goods and items from all over the globe, become easy to move into any area. In a way, this has been a little hurtful to some people, and extremely beneficial to others. Let me explain: the people who had come to rely on a certain methodology for trade, had to rethink their way of doing it, because of all the new people from all over arriving on the scene...

So, now we see a completely different landscape emerging and goods and products are much more easily available in every area (at least every Western area!) Also we are seeing implications for forming new sociological structures within the context of culture. So the global village is actually helping us learn something new about our world.

There are many other things which the Global Village has changed about our lives. This blog is far too small for me to comprehensively go into all of them... I might do a Global Village Part #2 later on.

Watch this space! OK see you all for Powerblog #3!

Coffee Facts You Might Just Not Find At Starbucks!

2009-04-08T15:37:00.000-07:00

Wow - what a plain title I hear you say!

Sorry, I am trying to create 30 100 word powerblogs by May 01, 2009! So here goes... My friends all say I can talk about anything under the sun (or the hind legs off a sick donkey!) I'll leave you to be the judge of that!

So here we are fishing for my first topic...

Let's talk about coffee, shall we? How much does anyone really know about coffee? First of all, it is grown all over the world, usually in hot places. (I.e. British coffee beans don't exist, or at least you won't find any called British, nudging shoulders with bags of beans from exotic places like Kenya, the Goald Coast or Java!)

Now that's out of the way, isn't it strange that although you don't see much coffee being grown in Britain, they sure drink a lot of it... Much more than say twenty years ago. Reason being is that they have improved their catered coffee over 700% since then. Gone are the days of the transport cafe, where a cup of "brewed" coffee was a mug of steamed milk with pretend coffee essence stirred in out of a bottle with the brand name "Camp" on it!

I can feel a blog about the Global Village coming on, but don't hold your breath. That's next!

OK, so to carry on, the coffee used to (after they ditched the stuff out of the bottle and started getting particular about how the powdered stuff would taste) be split into "arabica" and "robusta" beans. The difference was in the taste. The "robusta" beans had a coarse earthy taste to them and really lacked the delicate pungency of the "arabica" beans. Then the coffee importers would use so many parts "robusta" to so many parts "arabica."

To cut a long story short, we are all spoiled for choice now. British coffee drinkers can get their coffee from Costa or Starbucks. And the choice is no longer restricted to which brew is ordered, since the coffee can be created as a traditional Italian-style blended drink, along with the shots of expresso-made coffee added to it to create a perfect "Caffe Macchiato" (spotted coffee, rather like the spotted cow, really!)

I won't bore you with the rest. You can go to a Starbucks and just read the wall...

Happy coffee drinking! See you all on the flip-side for Powerblog #2!

The Headache of Trying to Get Just Any Job!

2009-03-18T17:40:00.000-07:00

You see people working, everywhere. You wonder why everyone is working and you are not.

The President passes some fabulous law which will remove the burden of $1,200 a month on "just-in-case" health insurance to 65% being paid by the employers and 35% paid by you, effective from September last year. Only you don't qualify, because you were laid off just six days too early (August 25th.) So you wonder why this doesn't work for you because in reality, you have a far greater need than all of those "chosen few" who just happened to get in at the right "event time!"

Oh and the other thing going on is that you cannot get any more unemployment benefit because the benefit just ran out after six months... So you apply for the benefit again, hoping they won't turn you down. The nice thing is, you are dealing with an ethical government office. They'll play it straight provided you do too. Sure enough, they approve your additional emergency relief. However, this only gives you ten weeks! At least it buys you some time!

After all, you played the whole thing straight, while there's some woman driving a Mercedes Benz and living in a mansion claiming food stamps! Huh! That doesn't sound right, does it... Makes the stuff AIG are allegedly doing, sound like small potatoes. But wait a minute, I thought all the skullduggery was over, no?

So what have you been doing to find work? Well, forget about "job" jobs. You may as well go and stand in line down on San Fernando Road along with those friendly folk from South of the Border, and wait to be chosen for semi-agricultural work at $7 per hour, except that you really don't want to jeopardize what you may have coming in from the Department of Employment Development.

So, what about Craig's List? Hmmm, they seem to have regular jobs every day. But wait, these are so competitive, that for every one you apply for, there are 10,000 others applying in the same second you apply. And wait, Craig's List themselves tell you that 89 - 99% of these jobs may not really exist, because this is the amount that get "flagged" for non-compliance with their code. Yes, you got scammed at least a couple of times. One scumbag has all of your details. God knows what he will do with all of this information. You do some damage limitation. First of all, what does he want the information for? Hang on! We need to know why he is a scammer first, right? OK - here's how we know... because we leave our browser open at the exact same page on Craig's List where his posting was yesterday, and it says right in the middle of the screen, "This posting has been flagged for removal" - so we go to the link under the word "flagged" and that is where we find the conciliatory note which explains why they prefer flagging over moderation,and, frankly, I wouldn't want that job either... Enough said.

Wait a minute, didn't we send off a resume, containing all of our information in good faith? Yep, we did! Bummer! That means that we will either be spammed to death by this guy or it will pose a security threat to our personal information. The key question to ask is "What did he want to do?" Well, the answer to this may end up being in your email a couple days later (if he's smart) or the next morning or the same day, if he is not smart. Mine came the next morning. "If you want this job you have to go to this site - link to click. Don't click it. But there may be clues in what he sent you, which will give his game away. This one was fairly straightforward. You actually click on the link and there's a page telling you that all employers need a person who really wants to further his education. There are three options, all of which take you to that famous alma-mater in Arizona somewhere, otherwise known as the fast-food university. You click on "No Thanks!" and it gives you one further option to sign up for something you really don't want!

This is mild. Other scams are after identity theft. Yet others will explode your screen with porn and other nasties, provided the browser you use doesn't intercept it first. (Mine does.) Nowadays, people are pretty well protected from this. That is why the scammers have to be so clever, and make sure that it all comes from the clicks made by the person they are scamming!

Enough of scamming! Back to the legitimate job search... And so, you very judiciously signed up for the Federal Jobs email, religiously emailed out every day, listing hundreds of jobs, albeit for careers like Marine Biologist in Taiwan etc... (These are all the 39,000 federal jobs that Jessica Holmes made such a big journalistic thing about the other morning on the KTLA Breakfast Show.) But let's not lose hope, eh? One day we'll see something there which will match your skillset. Along with these, we are seeing a whole new slew of jobs from the FBI. However, most of these are for Washington, DC and somewhere in Virginia. Now, the County, they still have openings, but wait, isn't there a hiring freeze?

Which brings me to the jobs that actually exist, but which have not been filled yet, but which you have to know somebody to get even the interview. These are around, but, as I say, if you don't know someone, forget it... I just really don't know how employers have the face to advertise a job and bring someone to an interview, and then change their mind. Others advertise jobs which don't exist. And employees at some recruiting companies, not all, mind you, are like hungry dogs....

So there are a bunch of people who are nice enough to phone you and see how you are doing... One has left a message. You phone them back. "Hi June! How is it going?" is your friendly opener.
"It's been so quiet. There is nothing for you right now... tell me how you have been getting on?"
So you tell her. You had a really successful interview and you are just waiting to hear... Wrong! She now wants to know which company. You stupidly tell her. And then you are surprised that the job is no longer open when you call the company back to find out what the next step is going to be!

A couple of kids came to my door the other afternoon. "Hi my name is XXXXX, and mine is YYYYYY!" they chirped, with a professional polish you would only hear in SoCal, as their father stood down at the street, watching every move. "We want to share with you our fund-raising drive for our school", as they opened an envelope with a glossy magazine and a list of hand-written names. I didn't wait for them... I told them that I had been unemployed for quite a while, and I didn't really have any spare cash to hand out.... Then I went to talk to the Dad. It turned out that he was unemployed too! Maybe not for so long as me... but he pointed me to a couple of web sites, albeit useless to me for job-hunting in my line of work, but then again, isn't that just how the Internet has turned out?

So what is the word on the street? In this inquitous society we live in, there is nothing obvious about how we get this business of finding a job done. The Internet, despite Monster, Dice, BrassRing, Indeed.com, Craig's List, CareerBuilder, Yahoo Hot Jobs, and a hundred other job boards, won't help you get a job.

I am told the only way is to go round banging on doors the old fashioned way. Trouble is, who is going to offer you a job if you don't know anyone?

I'm the Dude - I have a PhD in Making Ends Meet!

2009-02-01T14:09:00.001-08:00

I thought that this recession that we are in all over the world is so severe, that I should add some thoughts to the mix. They say that necessity is the mother of invention, meaning perhaps that we should become more inventive in order to survive.

Another expression we might be hearing in some quarters is "the algebra of need." This is a neat phrase, intended to tie the pure mathematics of survival in with the global issue of need and the know-how to make ends meet when everything is scarce. This phrase was first coined by William Burroughs in his sixties novel "The Naked Lunch."

Here's the kicker - it is so far-reaching that everyone takes a bite. So how do we survive?

First, everyone needs a job. How is that going to be achieved? Well, we need to get away from the climate which is negating our ability to expand. This is easier said than done. We need to pump a cash injection into all the areas of our life where we are seeing things getting cut back. Some areas will no doubt die and will never come back. People will lose their jobs and homes, and it will be a long drawn-out struggle to get back to work after that.

Second, the optimism that was so much a part of America seems to have taken a dive too. Eveywhere you look there is something going on which is extremely distasteful. Crime is up (although I have to say that the Los Angeles violent crimes are down, partly due to the fact that gangs are getting rounded up...) In an economy like this, it is no wonder that people are resorting to criminal means to stay solvent... But that is not really the focus of what I want to talk about. I think we have to look at the things we should be grateful for. If you still have a job, great! You should be really grateful. It is getting harder and harder to secure any job. Someone told me that they had overheard a person trying to get a job at the popular grocery store, Trader Joe's: "Sorry!" the clerk was telling him, "you are behind 1,000 lawyers and 5,500 bankers who all applied for work here last month." Someone once told me that Trader Joe's pays particularly well!

Another story I heard was that someone who had been working for a very well-known and prestigious company had been escorted to the door after 30 years of service. A disgraceful end to a perfect work record. Someone else was woken by the phone at six am from her company, telling her that she needn't report for work that day. Another firm moved out of their premises and changed the locks over the weekend. Workers arriving on Monday were unable to access the building where they had worked for a number of years, after bidding each other goodbye and wishing each other a nice weekend. In perfectly respectable companies employees have been told that they must take a mandatory two weeks unpaid vacation, after which they must return to work with a salary reduced by 6% to 10%.

The long and short of it is that there are now fewer jobs and many more qualified people to fill them. This is not good for the employee or person looking for work... In California where I live, 10% of people are out of work and claiming unemployment benefit, and the State is wondering how they will be able to continue to pay benefit to these people. So this now means that people, who if they felt that it was hard to get a job before, will find it ten times harder now, just to get an ordinary job. People working will need to be particularly careful not to do anything to jeopardize their position, since employers have every excuse to lay people off now.

Other than that, we are seeing the economy go mad. In the grocery stores, packages are being redesigned to cleverly disguise their size and capacity. (Next time you look at a can of beans, see if the bottom of the can has been designed with a great big concave base to it, like a big chunk has been bitten out of it. You won't see this unless you turn it upside down.)

Other packaging has been reduced in proportionate size, but looks exactly the same. The only way to see the difference is by holding it up with an original size package (conveniently pulled from the shelves by judicious merchants, not wishing for any trouble.) This size reduction is apparently because market-researchers understand that the public are more worried about rising prices than anything else.

So the price stays the same, but the quantity you get for it is reduced. However, you can't really do this with fruit and vegetables! I am wondering if they have any plans to manufacture donuts with hollow insides or wider inner rings? Will a "Veinte" at Starbucks take on the form currently used by a "Grande?" Of course we are going to see this everywhere, since the manufacturing industry has had to take the initial hit on the economy, in front of everyone else... Gone are the days when a slight blip on the economy's radar meant that a small business owner had to survive on a bank loan, rather than actual liquidity. Now they are not loaning anyone anything.

The other visible signs we see are in the high street. Stores which used to be there are gone. Restaurants, chain stores we have known and loved for tens of years are all disappearing. Who is doing well? I know the Waltons won't be losing any sleep!

Indeed, there are companies out there who are doing extremely well now and announcing record profits and earnings. Other, more household names, have had the worst fourth quarter on record. In the UK, household names like Woolworths have closed, never to return. I think there has been a landmark change in the way that people are now using their money to purchase things.

One thing is certain. If we are able to survive this recession, we will be able to survive anything they want to throw at us in the future.

Socializing In So Cal... all about Twitter!

2009-01-28T15:50:00.001-08:00

Let's face it - we exist on our social interactions. The Internet has just made it easier to do so. Our social interactions are just a part of how we communicate with each other today and applications like Twitter form an important part of this...

My experience with Twitter has been interesting as it has been varied. I started off with a couple of dozen followers, all of whom left me within a few short days, only to be replaced by others. I am now approaching 250 followers and I am following nearly 600. There are people who are hell-bent on having 2,000 followers and wish to get there in a few days! I have no such desire apart from not having enough time to concentrate on this. Also, don't believe anything you hear about the right and wrong way to run your Twitter account. I have explored a lot of Twitter and the co-applications (such as FriendOrFollow or retweetradar or even the infamous Twitter Grader.) Indeed, I have found some really useful applications like Twitscoop and Power Twitter (which runs from within Mozilla Firefox 3.05 as an add-on.)

People who think they are knowledgeable have put links to their mini-tutorials on Twitter. Click the link and you will have a bunch of rules, from one to twelve about what you should or should not do. If there was one rule which I will shout over the noise it is: BE YOURSELF!

So many people think that there is a way to be if you are on Twitter. Just as an experiment, I started three Twitter accounts. If you have been directed here from one of them it is probably the main one, http://twitter.com/stevetuf. FYI there are two others: one which I started because I wanted to see how or if I could direct the kind of people who end up being followers. Don't worry! I couldn't. Twitter just took its own course. Now I find that people follow me and I just follow them. Every day I look at Twitter. Occasionally I will post an update. Some days go by with me posting nothing. It's nice and easy and laid back like that. Why worry?

My main interest in Twitter was to explore its use as a social networking medium and I picked up a lot of the focus for this from George Siemens's CCK08 course at the University of Manitoba last fall. Certainly, Twitter can be looked upon as a powerful phenomenon which is changing the way we think about a lot of things. Certainly we can look at it as being a worldwide news spreader. It is amazing how quickly news spreads over Twitter, (exponentially faster than over conventional news-breaking media.)

So, what do I think about Twitter? I'll tell you. It is a media to which everyone should be signed up. They should have a handle which reflects their personality and character. It can also reflect a brand name, to which an individual is tied in some way, perhaps because that individual has a financial interest in the brand, or that the individual is a key figure in the organization which is supported by the Twitter account. Another variation is the account which represents a somewhat anonymous brand (e.g.: NASA) but these are far and few between. In the main, Twitter handles are like JoeBlow or MaryAnn. Others are more descriptive like BirdWatcher or CupcakeLover. (I made these up - they may even exist!) The most important thing is that the BirdWatcher does characteristic things as updates, not unrealistic things. For example: BirdWatcher should not be seen shooting grouse or pheasant and CupcakeLover oughtn't be peddling porn. Even more subtle, if we continually see updates from Birdwatcher which decries his love of the country: "Got myself real dirty the other day, shovelin some mud..." this might persuade someone like me to unfollow BirdWatcher. I think you get the idea.

And Twitter is really nowhere to be gross, profane or just plain nasty! (I have unfollowed people for their liberal use of the F word, (in the same way as I have unfollowed people who are overly religious and try and turn everything into a gospel.)

The people I am following seem to be split into three types: 1) plain ordinary folk who talk about the struggles they have with life every day 2) superstar professional microbloggers like Pistachio, ShelIsrael, Blonde2.0, Pop17 and CaliLewis, and others I have found who have a very defined avatar with an interesting slant on life like pastaqueen (and I love hearing what pastaqueen has to say!) and 3) everyone else, who can be a million different things. If I have left anyone out, sorry! I am not superhuman. I remember most of you but not all 572 people! That's too hard!

One thing I have seen is the amazing way people manage to post videos which are not very good. Either they are unprofessionally made, or the person who is making the video hasn't bothered to write a script before talking directly to the camera for a whole twenty minutes, stopping every few sentences to correct something they obviously hadn't rehearsed. This is absolutely unforgiveable! And you really won't get a second chance! Others produce the slickest best-rehearsed material and stun me with their sheer professional ability. No wonder they are in the big league.

Above all - I think that people don't realize that the difference between having PowerTwitter and just plain old Twitter, is that pictures and videos come straight through, so if they are bad, I am going to be much more annoyed with them than if I was a plain old Twitter user. So pictures and videos should be looked at first before posting...

My Twitter wish list: 1) I would really like a way to head for a specific time in the time line to go back to something which was said (usually only a few days ago) and 2) it would be great if, next to the avatar picture on the left, there was a symbol which tells me they're not following me! I posted this on Twitter but so far, nobody has come back with the solution.

See you all next time!

What's New About Country and Western?

2009-01-04T10:17:00.000-08:00

Well - it has been a while since I last blogged. Christmas and New Years was hectic like it always is... Meantime there has been time for me to reflect on the world.

Despite the horrible news from Gaza about so many people being maimed and killed, the world is trying hard to be a better place. I think the whole world is fed up with war-mongering and wants to do what it can to stop all the killing. Here is some good news, albeit only relevant for those folk in San Francisco, but anyway...

According to California Fire News, the response time to emergencies has improved enormously in the metro San Francisco area, and, following a new protocol, the 911 Call Center has improved the time it takes to dispatch emergency help to those people who really need it fast. For just about a year now, dispatchers have dispensed with the "further questions" approach before dispatching emergency teams, and, depending on the priority of the symptoms reported over the telephone, there is now no delay in getting people out to the scene of an emergency, whereas before, several questions needed to be asked to determine the priority, therefore taking up valuable time. This new approach has meant that now, instead of emergency workers arriving at a scene late one in four times, they now arrive late one in every five times. Although this doesn't appear to be monumental, try multiplying this figure by a hundred! This then means that whereas before, out of every 400 people's emergencies, 100 were late arrivals, now out of the same figure, 400, only 80 now are late arrivals, and we can expect the figure to keep dropping as the new technologies all take effect. Emergencies are really costly, and we should be very grateful for the support we get here in the USA. California had a record-setting wildfire year in 2008, with over 1.7 Billion dollars spent fighting wildland fires! There were some sad stories. But there were also many stories of heroism and courage too.

The other topic which came to mind was the film industry. Clint Eastwood has produced two new movies after a long time doing other stuff. He is 78 and still raring for more(!) He is going to be doing a story about Nelson Mandela this year. It is interesting that the film, "Gran Torino" is about an old guy who encounters some Asians who move into his neighborhood, and the movie deals with his very unique way of handling this. The old Eastwood of "High Plains Drifter" fame is still there, but, after the event, he has a lot to say about the presence (or lack) of political correctness, and somehow his old-style commonsense wins through in the end.

This demonstrates the incredible changes we have gone through in just the last few years. Where did all the old cowboy westerns go? Why is all of this so foreign to us now? I think someone should do a remake of classic "western" movies like "Monte Walsh", "High Noon", "High Plains Drifter" or "The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance" dressed up in a modern "western" genre, just as an experiment. I have always believed that these films have a place in our current society too, since the "West" was won at some stage, and, if nothing else, they serve as a piece of history, however politically incorrect they may or may not be.

See you next time around... :)

Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense!

2008-12-20T10:54:00.000-08:00

Yea - French. It means: "Evil be to he who evil thinks..." It's a motto. There are some really great mottos around. This is probably the opposite of the one which exhorts: "Pay forward!"

Let's take a step back for a minute. You are probably thinking, "Wow! I bet he's going to tell me that there is so much evil in the world!" Well - you know. But just think what all the good in the world does too, huh?

There has been an increase in really beautiful, thought-provoking reality shows on American TV recently. I am a firm believer that they all really started with the fine example that Oprah Winfrey gives us all! Some of the shows that I have recently viewed are:

Secret Millionaire - a show where real life millionaires give away their own money to deserving people they meet who have fallen on hard times. These people come from a real mixture background. We see those who have grown up against a backdrop of "old money" and those who started with nothing and built a multi-millionaire empire out of nothing. The common denominator is that they take time to visit folk who are literally on the breadline and in doing so, learn about how people who have next to nothing are living. It is a marvelous exposition of the human spirit and what it can achieve.

Molly Shattuck, wife of Mayo Shattuck III, CEO of Constellation Energy, was a recent participant in the show, and she actually gave away more than $100,000. She says (about the name, Secret Millionaire): “ I think it’s so obnoxious. But I absolutely am in love with the concept and in love with the show. I think it’s so important.” (quote courtesy of David Zurawik, Baltimore Sun) Molly drives around with her Mom, and we hear her Mom tell her that she has always thought that Molly was great just doing what she does, but that this had given her the opportunity to see the human side of Molly. We see her tearfully visiting a young widow with three boys who is living in a house which is literally falling apart. Aside from the angst which is obviously generated by the real danger of living somewhere where there are holes in the roof among other very real dangers, we are immediately aware of the sadness and emptiness generated by a recent loss of a life partner to some horrible deadly medical condition, in this case cardiac arrest.

So, everyone grows a little bit on the Secret Millionaire.

Another participant, Greg, in another show, comes from a different background, but nonetheless, is inspired by the really ordinary people, doing ordinary things to help their fellow human beings in need. The show starts with Greg being dumped off the bus in the harsh reality of this end of Vegas, and immediately we are seeing people being arrested and all the other aspects of the hard life on the streets! It is interesting to see that this is the North end of Las Vegas, a town which most of us see as being a magical land with fairytale lights and beauty. He starts off living in a "hotel" which he has a difficult time understanding to actually be a hotel, because he encounters cockroaches and other really filthy things in his room, for which he is working, because he doesn't have enough money to pay when he gets there. During the show, he visits a day center for teens in trouble, a lady who helps out people who have fallen on hard times with food and groceries, and he goes to a skateboard park, where a wheelchair-bound 16-year-old is doing tricks in his wheelchair! The kid's dream is to help others, so Greg helps that dream come true with a check. Greg also helps all the others with check donations from his own money.

In yet another show, we see a Los Angeles, self-made millionaire and his wife going to live in Watts, a depressed area of L.A., and we can sense the immediate danger felt by them as they drive into the area from the nearby area where they really live, which is so different. The amazing thing is that they are welcomed into the community just like anyone else, which proves the community spirit which exists in these places. Later on they too donate money to some really deserving people, one of whom is helping ex-convicts who are literally dumped off the bus, when they are released from jail.

Anyway - this is just an example of some of the truly wonderful things happening on TV in America. You can catch this on Fox (I expect these will be mirrored around the world. But I live in the USA, so this is my primary focus.) Of course, we have been watching "Extreme Makeover, Home Edition" for a while now on ABC, and this is another example of people doing stuff for other people who have fallen on hard times. Ty Pennington and his crew of designers and builders take a week to rebuild houses that have fallen into disrepair and create mansions out of hovels for deserving families.

I think that there are too many really terrible sad stories on the news. It would be great if someone could come up with a good news station which broadcast only good news. I somehow think this would be a challenge though...

See y'all next time!

Taking Connectivism Out Into The World Of Life

2008-12-15T08:56:00.000-08:00

Well the course is over. Students are still interconnecting. There will be a buzz of that going on for a long while...

What will I do now? My thoughts about this are: I will continue to blog. I will continue to bring you useful stuff. And I will continue to stimulate my brain and yours too. Talking of which, I have been acquainted with Alzheimer's Disease recently. A couple of people who are close to me, know exactly what it is to have someone suddenly deny knowledge of you right there and then... It is devastating, particularly if you love that person very much.

Several theories have been put forward for how the disease develops. However, the over-riding theory is that the brain starts to die because it is not getting enough exercise. Getting exercise to the brain can come in all kinds of ways. Now they are saying that one of the most widely used methods of brain exercise is surfing the Internet. In fact, scientists from UCLA have done a study on people aged 55 to 76, and have discovered that all of these "emerging computerized technologies may have physiological effects and potential benefits for middle-aged and older adults."

Hmmm, what is middle-aged now? It is getting more confusing what with people living longer. Perhaps they mean 60?

The Twitter-Connected, Interstitial Hyperbole Lives On....

2008-11-27T23:42:00.000-08:00

So, who says I can't dream up fascinating titles?

I have done a bit of work on the layout... I hope you enjoy it. The CCK08 course concluded in a blaze of glory today. I was sadly absent. i don't know how I missed it. I was somewhere else taking care of something quite important in my life, so I came back to the Eluminate session about half an hour after people had said their pieces. I am trying not to be too cut up about it. As George said: "I think I'd like to offer a course without any content again..." So there is always going to be good input from that direction. Right now, the closed eLearning course is up on a wiki, so everyone can read anyway (here is the link to the course which I finally found: http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wiki/IntroEmergingTech) - I have no idea why it was so hard to find this page... but I bet you all have had an experience of looking for a needle in a haystack...

Into the Wide Blue Yonder...with Connectivism!

2008-11-26T08:10:00.001-08:00

Well - twelve weeks flashed past. I have learned a lot about new technologies (http://www.masternewmedia.org/). I have seen the direct results of social networking (http://www.twitter.com/stevetuf) and I have been introduced to some amazing people (http://www.wikieducator.com.)

It has been a fabulous experience and it is not going to stop here. I intend to go on and explore some more.

Stretching Out and Finding Roots in My Branches...

2008-11-19T20:47:00.000-08:00

I have met an enormous amount of really interesting people during the CCK08 course. In fact, it is such a small world, that I now have a real problem trying to keep up with all the friends I have made all over the world. The problem is time!

Yes, time, is the grim reaper of my contact with other people. I never ever thought that this would ever be a problem. Now I find that to gather with other people who live all over the world, I have to plan the time zones... Happily, a regular weekly meeting which is held between people who live in Mexico, Israel, Turkey, Argentina and Germany, to name a few places, seems to be convenient at 11:00 am PST. But this is generally too late for people further West like those in Korea and other Asian places!

It is so strange that we should be coming up against these limitations now, when all the other technological problems of the world are rapidly dissolving, this is a problem that will probably never be resolved, until we become more virtual. This will mean a change to the virtual components of ourselves. I mean now, there is no feel or touch. Someone mentioned the absence of smell and touch in a conference on corporate learning I attended today. So, if you have been following my blog, you will have noticed that the first emphasis I made was on our proximity, and how, in some countries, people are quite comfortable to be inches away from each other, whereas in countries like Great Britain, USA, Canada, this would mean invasion of a "comfort zone."

So, will we become more and more androgynous as time wears on? Will we lose our sexuality, our individuality in favor of a more asexual existence? Will our immortality increase in deference to our longevity and lack of offspring? Will we really find it comfortable in a society where nobody questions the lack of contact and ordinary tenderness?

Give me your thoughts and ideas....

Swinging Along in the Mid-Term...

2008-11-05T20:52:00.000-08:00

Well here we are. It's past eight weeks into the CCK08 Connectivism course. I have to admit that, although I was pushing hard to stay on top at the beginning, this has now been pushed aside in my struggle to find a job to pay the mortgage!

Isn't that sad? What I have been doing though, is spending some time with the SL Experiments group, run by Nergiz Kern. This has been enormously interesting to me and I can see how powerful education can be in an application like Second Life.

So I have spent a little time there, and I have also been doing what I do best on my own website and also on Nergiz's Second Life Experiments Wiki site. I can say quite unequivocally that I really love creating web pages! I could spend my entire life doing this. It is wonderful to know what I enjoy doing. It is entirely another matter to secure a job that pays enough for me to be able to sit back and really do this for the rest of my life!

I cannot say that I haven't noticed some stuff about Second Life in passing through the portal as it were... for one thing, they have some situations which they haven't managed to fix which are still happening after a long time period...

There is a lot of "unwritten" stuff going on. A "newbie" can enter SL with a lower than standard computer and have a miserable time with "lag." Also, there are little things like the following situation: if you teleport somewhere from a sitting position, you will look crippled somehow well after you have arrived at your destination, even though, you, the person it is all happening to, cannot see this! I am told that this has been a problem for some time. Another thing, I was in an area this afternoon and I was walking along a road. Before I could do anything about it, my legs and thighs were sunk down in the road and it looked like I was wading along!

It is obvious that there are several basic things which have to be learned, before anyone can really benefit from the experience in Second Life. Apart from the usual allurances which would entice anyone into the environment and perhaps make them stay in spite of the obvious problems with the experience they are having, it is a very exciting environment, where absolutely anything goes, but virtually! Having said that, there are two levels in the main "grid" - PG and Mature. Linden Research saw fit to create a Teen Second Life too, probably to siphon off any problems with underage membership. Be that as it may, it only serves as a separation point, the cut-off age being eighteen years of age.

But the really complex stuff must come later, like making your avatar move in a special way, growing wings or attaching objects. I saw a fascinating demo of a whiteboard, given by a software developer who is well-versed in JavaScript, which is fed by an external site off an iFrame. This is advanced manipulation of the Linden grid and very useful for education. I have to say that the simple things, like learning to make your avatar dance, is really very easy. What would be interesting would be to learn how to make the avatar interact physically with other avatars. And I know that this is possible. It's simple silly little things which I don't understand, like this: if you are dancing and want to IM someone at the same time, or even in Local Chat, how can you make the avatar carry on dancing as your keys leave the dance activation keys (F9 F10 F11 and F12) to type the message? Perhaps you have the avatar programmed to dance on a joystick gesture/mouse gesture and all of this is automated? Perhaps you have a speech-to-text programmed so that your fingers never have to touch the keyboard anyway... I don't believe this is what happens. Because I have heard people talking and using Local Chat and IM all at the same time as they are making their avatar do incredible things!

Apart from that, it is still a very interesting environment which I would still like to explore some more...

I'm Still Slammed! So Slammed!

2008-10-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

Nothing much to report this week. I attended the Elluminate session this morning. We discussed quite a lot of stuff, but it really seemed pretty inconclusive.

On the bright innovative side, I researched the Second Life and Teen Second Life Virtual worlds, and wrote an article about it on IT Toolbox (http://it.toolbox.com/wiki/index.php/Second_Life_Virtual_World)

So not a lot to tell you... Hopefully next week we'll see some changes take place!

If you read this - go out and vote!

The Game of Virtual Pilot...

2008-10-23T16:09:00.000-07:00

I wanted something new to do so I played Lufthansa Virtual Pilot here:
I did very well. Let's see how well you do.... OK?
Have a terrific day!
:)

Whew...! I'm Maxed Out...!!!

2008-10-16T11:52:00.000-07:00

You know, I just don't have time for anything.

So I am just going to post this little short piece and then maybe things will change by Friday. Right now I am slammed with a massive writing project. If I don't complete this, I will have a major problem....

So, dear readers, be patient... I will be back! :)

The Five-Week Wonder, or Discovering What I Have Learned So Far

2008-10-10T22:50:00.000-07:00

You know, there are many things about this course which are not immediately apparent to the eye. One of these is the truly international flavor of the course... We come from all over, not just Canada, Australia, USA and the UK.

There are subgroups meeting in SL which belong to Spain, Argentina, Turkey, Israel and Korea. These subgroups are trying to do the impossible, have a class at all different time zones! This is the point. We relax in a beautiful area of SL surrounded by palm trees and gentle breezes, totally oblivious of the real FL environment which many of us may be in. This is what makes it so special! We set all of the reality aside to bask in the imaginary world, wherever physically we may be. And it is remarkably alluring. It is a magic environment, full of magic beings.

Getting Down to IT...

2008-10-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

So much has happened since the last entry. I have entered the fifth week of Connectivism and Connective Knowledge CCK08. I had a wonderful SL experience on Friday. Here we were, educators sat around a balmy patio in a beautiful villa... What more could anyone want? We discussed methods and learned about each other. It was interesting to see that we had all been brought together: I had emerged from California, United States, and the others were from Argentina, Mexico, Israel and the United Kingdom, a meeting of world minds, but appearing in the same room in SL!

I will probably add to this later on today. Right now, I have rather too much to do...

The Deeper Meaning of Networking

2008-10-02T13:18:00.000-07:00

To align truly with this week's focus, that of the History of Networks, I thought I would add a few lines in my blog about how this strikes me...

We have seen how people interact and that a group of people or entities, who have an effect on each other constitutes a network. The networks of all time, over eons and ages, were formed by similarities of thinking and focused viewpoints. Let's take Socrates, for example. He had a network of friends, but because of his association with the local community, he was accused of corrupting the youth of that community with his ideologies.

I was led to think about networks of people who have lived and who have already passed on and who presumably belong to a different age, and I was struck particularly by a line or two from a historic novel about seventeenth century Venice. This quote comes from Barbara Quick's novel, "Vivaldi's Virgins" and tells a story about the agelessness of music even though by definition, the statement she makes paints a completely different picture!

"What more can a mere musician possibly hope for?
Music cannot be kept or captured. It unfurls in one miraculous moment in time, and then it's gone. The glorious sound of Marietta's voice in a cantabile aria will be forever lost after she is dead and all of us who ever heard her are dead, too. No matter how well I manage to play, my playing will be forgotten when all those who have heard me have died." (Quick, Vivaldi's Virgins, 254)

This really rings false in this age of shared music, royalty hearings and other copyright legislation, doesn't it? But the network to which Anna Maria belonged had none of the instantaneousness of today's world. Life was indeed slower and possibly more predictable, but nonetheless a valid network of like-minded individuals, having an effect on those people who were around them.

Networking, Connected to the Full-Blown Stream of Life...

2008-09-24T20:41:00.000-07:00

Wow, I have such a lot to catch up on!

This is coming out two days late, because so many landmark things have been happening.

I am now a US citizen, having been "naturalized" in a ceremony at a sports stadium along with 5251 other former green card holders last Friday, September 26th, 2008 (!) However, to me the word, "naturalized," smacks of cowboy films and culture from a former era, not 2008! I can just hear John Wayne telling me: "You're a US citizen. And you're gonna be for the rest of your "natural" life!"

Yesterday I took part in a charity walk which collectively raised $60,000 for the local hospital. Two people's lives very dear to me were saved there, (one of which was mine!) And we all look on it as being a vital local resource.

Enough of this - what about Connectivism? Well, I am looking at two ways of producing my Concept Map. I have started both already and I shall decide which one looks best to me. So far, I have been actively involved in the Moodle Forums, posting whenever and wherever something grabs my attention and feels like something I just cannot let go without some sort of counter argument.

Overall I am finding that there is a very wide divide between some of the participants and others in terms of Web 2.0 awareness and knowledge of Web 2.0 tools and resources.

Before I began this study of Connectivism, I was actively engaged in creating a Wiki for a commercial company, along with tools to facilitate the jobs of engineers employed there. The wiki was solely to facilitate capture of tacit knowledge and apply its practical use to the day-to-day activities of those individuals who needed to learn a proprietary methodology very quickly. I firmly believe that I succeeded in my chosen objective. Wiki is something that was never really used much before ever in the arena of academia and never in companies, because the thought of individuals collaboratively editing a document was thought of as being very nonacademic and therefore not very reliable as a source. After examining methods of attaining information, Wikipedia is still thought of as being very flaky for the serious study of anything academic. If this is the case, why do millions of people go there for answers? I credit Wikipedia as being the stimulus for other really great learning tools like Wiki Answers, Yahoo Answers, and practically all of the forums and posting grounds all over the Internet which are dedicated to a specific subject and which offer instant solutions to technical problems. This is the start, but it is by no means the end!

I am getting ready to promulgate my own position on Connectivism, waiting only to simultaneously publish this and the Concept Map. (I'll be there by next weekend, George and Stephen! Honest!)

I have met many wonderful new people in this course from all over the world. I have had exciting stimulating contact with people in Italy, Australia, Spain, Hungary, UK, Mexico and of course, Canada. It would also be remiss of me to exclude the USA. If I have left out a nation, it is because I missed it in my analysis and there is no excuse for me. (Wow, what a boo-boo I hear you all say!) But I am getting to the point of telling you all that I have tried to be an active part in Connectivas too. I was truly excited to hear that George had spoken at Second Spain in SL for 20 seconds, followed by a translation, followed by further talk, and after each 20 second segment had been translated, he allowed time for questions. I have saved a 41 minute MP3 of this. The only problem I had was that the Spanish translation contrasted with George's English version in that it was pretty badly distorted. I hope they have better success next time (and I sincerely hope that there will be "a next time.") I know that there was lots to talk about after this and it has shown, strangely enough, that there seems to be a really powerful platform for SL in a Hispanic community, probably larger than in the English-speaking community in the participants - the one that seems to dominate.

I have to briefly touch on the very interesting Elluminate session we had on Wednesday, where Valdis Krebs presented on the Meaning of Networks. So much was covered, from the association of people in simple groups to the meaning of larger networks, and how a terrorist organization could not be distinguished from a business organization's network diagram. we viewed many different network charts all of which were given a special meaning by Valdis's exclusive experience working at www.orgnet.com

Rounding out the week, I feel I have a better understanding of Connectivism, but I am beginning to feel just a little overwhelmed by all the subject matter.

Well, this is a longer blog than the ones I have been writing up to now, but so much has happened in the last few days... I hope that it continues in this way. Please note that I abandoned my use of the abstract because it seemed the right thing to do, and what is a blog if it is not completely ad-hoc?

Gathering, Tethering, Collating and Beginning to Understand...

2008-09-19T20:31:00.000-07:00

Well, the FeedRaider turned up some rare stuff today. Having signed into Second Life for a walk around Second Spain and Virtual Atlantis, I gathered up enough strength to create a new face for myself, complete with a rock musician's hairdo and my favorite skin and eyes... Boy did that feel good wearing my Versace torn blue jeans and suede leather jacket! I took a good look around. I could almost smell the fresh clean air and balmy fragrance of a Mediterranean and mid-Atlantic shore wash my feet, as the warmth of the sun seemed to kiss my face. Yes this did feel like Final Fantasy, but without the magic and weird creatures. The girls actually looked like girls (I mean they didn't have a cat's face or a big long tail...) And I saw the massive projector screens and whiteboards. Wow, you could build a dream of a classroom here...! Just paint the sky right, no sun looking like a messy runny fried egg. Definitely over easy, lending a calm, almost artificial pleasance to the surroundings.

Some days I just don't feel like Twittering. I guess my Twitter has turned to Twoot. And George had some great stuff to tell us all on that TV station thing about the year 2050. They should have David Bowie on this class as a lecturer. He'd have a thing or two to tell... "In the year 2525...."

I am getting a lot of criticism for my views, not a lot of support and strange silence from people who were once vociferous. I wonder what it all means?

Well - I have been just a couple of weeks on the Connectivism course at Winnipeg in Canada and I can see some really nifty stuff now where before I was pretty much unaware of it.

So in real terms, I wonder what will be down the road from here? I always liked the WWW. Now I love it for its storehouse of goodies and delightful experiences, along with the knowledge that we are all learning here, very rapidly!
Twitter

The Paradox of Ambient Awareness

2008-09-17T19:47:00.000-07:00

by Steve Tuffill - Tuesday, 9 September 2008, 04:05 PM

We stride down the pathway of life, looking straight ahead and glancing through the facility of our electronic peripheral vision, at Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and MySpace, to observe our transitory contacts (we don't dare call them "friends" do we?)

Another email pops up, glancing at it, I carry on valiantly with the dissertation I am writing on the meaning of life, thinking that it is all pretty meaningless without some form of physical contact.

However, that contact is "tissue-thin" and just as fragile. Have you noticed how close people can get to each other in Asia? It is way closer than my North American comfort zone... Try Alaska, it's far safer.

Going to work, I am wired to my Blackberry, typing with one hand as I listen to the tele-conference with one ear and take technical support calls with my free hand jammed over the other, while whichever spare finger I have makes last-minute configuration changes on a light-sensitive keyboard to a distant server.

My brain hurts with the abuse. Where were the banks of green willow, I find myself asking? What happened to the autumn days where the weather was cool and the sky was blue? Where were the hours that were uncountable? Everything has been captured in a little box, for later retrieval. When? I hear you ask? Whenever...

Getting a Feel for Connectivism in the Abstract

2008-09-17T19:45:00.001-07:00

by Steve Tuffill - Saturday, 13 September 2008, 04:42 PM

Continuing the abstract theme, I am going to explore the central theme of connectivism. What is it?

Calling upon the tools of collective awareness, we plunge into the sea of collective unconsciousness, feeling others all around us. The thrill of participation is intense. We sense the urgency of some of our colleagues' thoughts and dreams, hopes and fears.

We are all very literate, in many different ways. Some of us choose to alliterate. Others choose to presume. And others would prefer to look it all up in some learned tome. (But the tome is fast becoming the Internet!) Again, some would care to argue for whatever reason, intellectual, political or for fun. Yet others may choose to claim ownership of each others' intellect, (but who would be wise to read the piece by Stephen Downes on copyright, ethics and theft!) Most of us are literate in one way or another. (P.S. I really liked the video of Ken Robinson on Ted with regard to schools killing creativity as did the video produced by the Kansas State University which took a much more down-to-earth approach to the theme of Students today, and how they spend their time in class! Last but not least, I was entertained by the simple shout from our young people: Youth for Human Rights #18 Freedom of Thought Now back to my abstract ponderings...)

Many of us have produced mind-maps. These are in apposition to our twemes pages, our Twitter connections, and our PageFlakes, and work wonders in hooking up our understanding of what is being said...

This is an awesome and wonderful time, a golden age, where we have everything we could possibly want to go where we want to go.